Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is a third-person shooter video game developed by the Montreal branch of Visceral Games and released on March 26, 2013 by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is the third game in the Army of Two series, following 2008’s Army of Two and 2010’s Army of Two: The 40th Day. The game takes place in Mexico and pits T.W.O. against a ruthless drug cartel known as La Guadaña (Spanish for “the Scythe”). It is the first game in the series to run on the Frostbite 2 game engine where as the previous two ran on Unreal Engine 3. The demo for the game was released on March 13, 2013. It was the last game developed by Visceral Montreal.

Gameplay

Where as the last two games focused around characters, Salem and Rios, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel will focus around two new T.W.O. operatives named Alpha and Bravo. It is speculated that the reasoning behind the unidentified names is to give the player the feeling that it is them fighting through the missions.

Returning from the first game is the Overkill mode, which makes both players invincible for a short period of time. However, features such as back to back, playing rock, paper and scissors with your partner, and other co-op interactions have been removed in favor of a more fast-paced gameplay. Competitive multiplayer from the second game will not be returning to focus on a richer co-op experience.

Features

It has been noted that the game will feature more customization options compared to the previous games in the series. The Devil’s Cartel will feature a mask creator which allows players to completely customize their masks, thus giving their TWO operative its own persona. Customers can pre-order the Overkill Edition which comes with bonus weapons, masks, outfits, and missions that are not available with the standard version of the game.

Review Roundup

Eurogamer

There is a scoring system based on how well you work with your partner, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. A basic kill will earn you $10 in the game’s monetary XP system. A flanked kill, however, is worth $75. Also worthy of a bonus are surprise kills, acting as a distraction and combining your efforts to take down the same enemy. However, the way the game works out these bonuses is often inexplicable, awarding you high scores for things you didn’t even know you were doing. An enemy can come dashing towards you, engage in a prolonged melee tussle, and when he goes down you get a “surprise kill” bonus. Before long, you stop trying to play clever with tactics and just do whatever works. That, ironically, tends to lead to much better scores.

On a technical level, the game feels like an unloved obligation rather than a passion project, and irritating bugs and glitches abound. Cover is sticky and the targeting reticle needed to dash from one safe spot to another appears inconsistently. Characters stumble around each other, the scenery can violently jiggle up and down for no reason and friendly characters will decide they’re not going any further and block your way with mule-like tenacity. More than once I had to restart a checkpoint because the game simply didn’t trigger the events needed to progress. Lone enemies can get lodged in the scenery, or simply don’t emerge from hiding on rooftops, making it impossible to end levels.

5/10

Videogamer

At the start the two main characters are hit by an RPG ambush in Mexico. The game then flashes back to our heroes as they’re trained up to be ruthless, ass-kicking mercenaries, bent on taking on the cartel that set them up. They do this by killing more people than every single armed human conflict combined. As they fight, endlessly, through a repetitive collection of dull brown tunnels, dull brown markets, and dull brown enemy strongholds, they sometimes become invincible, and their guns get infinite ammo, for reasons never explained. And then everything, EVERYTHING, they shoot explodes and everyone’s limbs blow off in a shower of gore.

Clearly they must be dead, I thought, and what follows must then be the dying revenge fantasy of the leads, with the developers using that framework as a big joke at the endless violence/total nonsense on display in video games; including, of course, the last two Army of Two games. It has everything: bland levels, stupid dialogue, over-the-top kill animations, poorly-implemented online co-op, zero-dimensional characters, which are called – no shit, Alpha and Bravo.

Then, roughly 10 hours of shameless (s) laughter later, I realised it probably wasn’t a joke. The references to video game clichés are lampshades to throw players off the fact that they’re too creatively bankrupt to think of anything else other than red barrels or telegraphed plotting. Which means, and this is incredible, that EA has created something this on the money by mistake.

And yet, I couldn’t stop playing it, because it made me laugh – genuine laughter, not snooty guffawing – at how over the top it was, in the same way that Commando might do. The shooting in Army of Two has, for me, always been very solid. There’s a weight to it (and your characters) that makes it feel like you are a death-dealing instrument of doom, and it actually feels like you’re firing a gun, not a peashooter.

A lot of what comprises Army of Two: The Third is total crap, and yet I had a lot of fun playing it. We don’t know how EA has done it. They probably don’t know how they’ve done it. But they have. And I’m glad they did.

5/10

IGN

In Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Players find themselves on the deadly streets of Mexico as Alpha and Bravo, two operatives working for Tactical Worldwide Operations (T.W.O.), a PMC outfit that drops them in the middle of a drug war conflict for an assignment full of corruption and deceit. With the ability to unleash the power of ultimate destruction, players will need to work together as their objectives unravel, allegiances begin to blur and they face off against a ruthless opposition.

Featuring both online and split-screen co-op, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel gives players the chance to distinguish themselves from their friends by providing a deeper and more advanced upgrade and customization system. From the mask that protects them in battle to the very weapons that keep them alive, players can customize their own Alpha and Bravo to create the deadliest mercenary team as they see fit.

8.8/10

Gamespot

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is a third-person shooter where players assume the roles of mercenaries battling a Mexican drug cartel in the town of La Puerta.

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is out next week on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I know, it snuck up on me too. If you were looking forward to this bromantic action game filled with explosions, bullets, explosions, and oversized blades (seen above) – well that time is almost here.

EA has sent over a new trailer for the game chocked full of explosions and promotional quotes from the game. We revealed some hands on impressions ourselves a few weeks back – let’s see if I can find some good quotes to pull from it.

See! I can pull out of context quotes and make things sound awesome too. Don’t worry – what I played of the game was fun, especially if you liked the previous titles.

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is out on March 26th with two player local or online co-op on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

We don’t know why this latest trailer announcing us of the launch of Visceral Games’ Army of TWO: The Devil’s Cartel asks us to download content to play as singers B.O.B. and Big Boi (Outkast 4 Lyfe). We don’t know, and we don’t care. Because with gameplay like this – and friggin’ explosions – who could possibly care about anything else?

That being said, the singers do provide some wonderful BGM to scenes of cracking Cartel skulls, vehicular explosions, turrent sequences and stabby melee play. The game will follow two new operatives, Alpha and Bravo, as they venture into Mexico to take on the dangerous cartels inhabiting it.

Oh, also a mysterious masked man who shadows them at every turn. Surely he can’t be related to the series in some way, right? Right?

Army of TWO: The Devil’s Cartel is set to release on Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 26th in North America.